on the immaculate sheet the first haiku of the day
--Angela Giordano (Avigliano, Italy)

* * *

she used to
show me the clock each night
at 22:22
--Emil Karla (Paris, France)

* * *

late night with Basho
smart phone turns back
at 0200
--Lyle Smith (West Sacramento, California)

* * *

the night stained by light
in the hour before dawn breaks
open the skylid…
--Alan Maley (Canterbury, England)

* * *

New Year’s bells
and fireworks like shooting stars
sense of infinity
--Tsanka Shishkova (Sofia, Bulgaria)

* * *

peace…
the time between
the hammer blows
--Tony Williams (Glasgow, Scotland)

* * *

early morning--
lipstick still at the edge
of the lips
--Nicoletta Ignatti (Castellana Grotte, Italy)

* * *

“i am here”
“where are you?”
loon’s lake at dawn
--Deborah A. Bennett (Carbondale, Illinois)

* * *

frequent flyers…
the doormat piles up
with postcards
--David Cox (Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam)

* * *

Grew up looking east
to Mt. Baker--maybe that’s
why I write haiku
--Chris Hanlon (Edmonton, Alberta)

------------------------------
FROM THE NOTEBOOK
------------------------------

money gift
i wonder what’s
today’s rate
--Christina Chin (Kuching, Borneo)

The haikuist recalled “sitting round the elders” at New Year’s and “they would tell us what half a cent could buy them… and if they really ran out of pocket money, the ice cream man would half the dessert and poke sticks for two.” As an exchange student from Germany in the 1960s, Horst Ludwig said he could “ill afford to write my parents hardly once a month because the stamp was 6 cents… Now old and reclined on my easy-chair watching reruns on television, I just checked the international U.S. letter rate. Unbelievable!”

Perry Mason got
a hotdog at 20 cents
solving the problem

Having waited a long time, Shishkova started this year a little disappointed.

half full
New Year’s gifts bag...
inflation wave

In this first column of the year, haikuists set out their new year resolutions. Hoping to see a snow-capped Mount Fuji someday, Jennifer Smyth-Davey attended a recent art exhibition of “36 Obscured Views of Mount Fuji” in Newcastle, Australia.

Again, I missed Fuji
speeding train craning neck clouds
perhaps it’ll find me

Ian Willey hopes to better describe Mount Fuji’s grandeur in words.

convention center
with a view of Mount Fuji
how words fail me

Murasaki Sagano hopes to inkbrush all her haiku that were typeset in this column during 2024. She plans to make a book, by hand--noting that was how Matsuo Basho wrote his travel journals.

Handwriting
Smiling alphabets
December waltz

This year, David Cox hopes to join the trend of “life-seeing instead of sightseeing,” so he took a cruise on the Queen Mary 2 in the South Atlantic Ocean.

breaking the glass
seaside from deck 3…
some kind of whale

Zeljko Vojkovic plans to visit Shinano, Nagano, the present-day location of Kobayashi Issa’s (1763-1828) hometown. Kanematsu will enjoy rereading this encouraging line on the master poet’s Jan. 5 Memorial Day: Yase gaeru makeru na Issa koko ni ari (skinny frog--never ever give up Issa’s here).

an ancient Greek
I long to read Issa’s haiku
in his hometown

* * *

Issa’s Day--
missing the poet
skinny frogs

Gareth Nurden hesitated before making a wish this year in Wales, U.K.

tired well
the weight of the world
in one penny

Melissa Dennison’s house is all ready for the holidays in Bradford, England.

up to my elbows
in soap suds
I dream of spa holidays

Admitting, “I do like to plan ahead,” James Penha prepared his will and testament in Bali, Indonesia.

umbrella banyan
outspread now these sunny days--
will drape my ashes

Stephen J. DeGuire in Los Angeles hadn’t mailed a haiku by press time. We wish him godspeed.

three hundred-
sixty-three sheets torn
two days left

Charlie Smith raked up fallen leaves, but will a blustery winter gust on the Jan. 6 U.S. election certification day force him to do it all over again?

winds of change
leaves in two piles
election day

Foteini Georgakopoulou in Athens, Greece, recalled longing to have a haiku published for the first time.

that train missed
longing for another chance
I turn to face my future

Looking back on her life in Tokyo, Junko Saeki suggested that if you wait long enough, there will always be a good day for sailing.

the last 15 years of my life--
time is precious, but
one thing at a time

Shishkova prayed for a return to a period characterized by optimism, enlightenment, peace and economic prosperity.

3rd Millennium
expectations and hope
for the Belle Epoque

Before the new year, Teiichi Suzuki proudly mailed out his latest haiku anthology. The postman returned some to his box this morning though, causing him to worry if his acquaintances had moved into a care home or were already dead.

Deep autumn
“addressee unknown”
an old friend

In Melbourne, Australia, Nani Mariani lamented the loss of another New Year’s tradition: no more events for buying new shoes

After bushfires swept through Margaret Ponting’s property in Gippsland, Australia, she longed for green vegetation and signs of life.

first sign of life
from the scorched earth
an echidna emerges

Awakened at midnight by incoming new year messages, Tejendra Sherchan is determined to get a good night’s sleep in Kathmandu, Nepal.

somnambulism
I turn on my new laptop
and shut it down

Marie Derley wrote from Belgium to announce “surprise, my haiku French friend… is just on the same line as I.”

Asahi haikuist online
my friend Francoise and I
on the same line

It is hoped that the uplifting works in today’s column cheered ¬readers with a moment of unexpected joy or amusement, as well as to ¬gently underline the human capacity for ¬creative word play.

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The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear Jan. 17 and 31st. Readers are invited to send haiku for the Year of the Snake on a postcard to David McMurray at the International University of Kagoshima, Sakanoue 8-34-1, Kagoshima, 891-0197, Japan, or e-mail to mcmurray@fka.att.ne.jp.

* * *

David McMurray has been writing the Asahi Haikuist Network column since April 1995, first for the Asahi Evening News. He is on the editorial board of the Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku, columnist for the Haiku International Association, and is editor of Teaching Assistance, a column in The Language Teacher of the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT).

McMurray is professor of intercultural studies at The International University of Kagoshima where he lectures on international haiku. At the Graduate School he supervises students who research haiku. He is a correspondent school teacher of Haiku in English for the Asahi Culture Center in Tokyo.

McMurray judges haiku contests organized by The International University of Kagoshima, Ito En Oi Ocha, Asahi Culture Center, Matsuyama City, Polish Haiku Association, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Seinan Jo Gakuin University, and Only One Tree.

McMurray’s award-winning books include: “Teaching and Learning Haiku in English” (2022); “Only One Tree Haiku, Music & Metaphor” (2015); “Canada Project Collected Essays & Poems” Vols. 1-8 (2013); and “Haiku in English as a Japanese Language” (2003).